


Sleeping

by hops



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Death, Gen, Grief, IPRE Era, The Stolen Century
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-13
Updated: 2017-08-13
Packaged: 2018-12-14 18:15:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11788713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hops/pseuds/hops
Summary: "Shit. He's just a kid."Magnus dies in his sleep on the mushroom world.





	Sleeping

**Author's Note:**

> So this one just wouldn't leave me alone. All the cred and thanks to [unhooking-the-stars](http://unhooking-the-stars.tumblr.com) for creating this [absolutely beautiful comic](http://unhooking-the-stars.tumblr.com/post/164026606057/unhooking-the-stars-i-was-thinking-about-magnus) that made me cry but also really inspired me. Thanks for giving me your blessing to share this! 
> 
> I tagged but have one more fair warning: definite TW for death and grief.

It's so quiet that morning. 

 

It‘s Lup that swings open his door to wake him for breakfast; she’d let him sleep in, knowing he'd been feeling sporesick and needed his sleep to heal. They'd been determined to keep him on his feet until next cycle came around.  

"Mags? Up and at 'em, lazy bones," she says to the shape of him under the blankets. When he doesn't groan or stir, she pauses. "M... Magnus?"  

When he doesn't move, she crosses his quarters and finds him sleeping peacefully, lifeless and unbreathing. "Oh," is all she can say. She removes her hand from the blanket and turns for the door. Her eyes well with tears and she doesn't know why.  _He's coming back,_ she reminds herself, but it doesn't help.  

She appears at the door of the ship and the others turn to look at her. She takes a deep breath, fists clenched.  

"Lup? Where's Magnus?" Barry says.  

"Dead."  

A moment of silence ghosts between them.  

She swallows the lump in her throat, but it just moves into the tightness of her chest. She looks at Barry. "Can you help me with the body?"  

"Fuck." Barry says, softly, stepping towards the ship. "Yeah."  

 

It‘s Barry that goes to Magnus's side, who is perfectly still and curled on his side facing the wall. He starts to pull away the blanket, but stops to touch the side of Magnus's head with a tenderness Lup had never seen from him before. He's silent for a moment, then speaks solemnly. 

"Shit. He's just a kid," he says, and it's almost as if it's the first time he's ever really realized that about Magnus. Something about a (physically) twenty-year-old dying in his sleep, all for a piece of hard candy, stirs a foreign and solemn sadness in him.

Lup stands in the doorway. She says nothing, only watches as Barry straightens out and stands, collecting himself.  

"What are we  _doing,_ Lup?"  

She's surprised to hear tears in his voice as he turns to look at her from the bedside. Still, she doesn't know what to say.  

"He's _twenty_. He's... he's a kid. I know it's been eight years but I don't—I don't—" he tries to breathe deeply. His hand presses firmly on the mask over his mouth. "He had his whole life ahead of him."  

Lup steps forward to touch his arm. It's her turn to remind him now: "He's going to come back. This cycle's almost over."  

"No, I don't mean death, I mean... He signed up for this thinking it was two months, that we'd be home years ago now. And we... we don't have anything to go back to and it's not right." After a pause, he clears his throat. "That's all."  

"Barry..." She says softly, touching his arm, but he pulls away. "Don't... I just— Try not to think about that right now."   

"Hard not to, I guess." Barry gazes down at Magnus and begins to roll away the blanket.  

Lup follows his gaze and reaches Magnus's face, greyish in the strange luminescence of the spores. She doesn't cry this time. Something within her solidifies: a certain numbness, meant to protect her from the thoughts about how this wasn't right, how this was no place for someone so young, how this might be the rest of his life. His eyes are closed, but she feels as though they might open at any second, twinkling with mischief and fondness. She turns away as Barry rolls Magnus onto his back.  

 

It‘s Lucretia who prepares the funeral pyre. She stares down at him for a few moments and ponders the lines of his face. He is very young, the only one on the crew really close to her own age. Her heart aches. They'd done this a few times before now but somehow the other times didn't feel so sad. So heavy. Her hands tremble as she touches his cold hands, softer than she remembers, and gingerly crosses his arms over his chest.  

She takes off his mask. He doesn't need it now, anyway.  

Her heart sinks as she touches his shoulder, the only goodbye she can muster. 

 He just looks like he's sleeping.  

 

The fire burns for a long time. Lup, Lucretia, and Barry sit together on the deck of the ship, watching the embers glimmering between the already-encroaching neon mushrooms all around them. None of them speak.  


End file.
